Entertainment

Some advice for supporters of that ridiculous 'Cancel Far Cry 5' petition

If you don't like what Ubisoft is doing in Far Cry 5, petitioners, why not just go and make your own game?

For anyone who's not caught up: Earlier in May, Ubisoft announced that Far Cry 5 would be heading to the series most exotic locale to date — a cult-occupied county in the U.S. state of Montana. Much like the previous games, you'll run around an open world environment gunning down armies of natives.

In past games, all set outside the U.S., "natives" amounted — primarily — to varying shades of non-white skin colors. In Far Cry 5, the leaders of the cult that we've been introduced to are all white. For all anyone knows, there are non-white cultists as well. The game isn't out until early 2018.

The petition already seems to know what the game is about, however. To the authors, Far Cry 5 is "Liberals Gun Down Alt-Righters: The Game." And they are against it.

In a 535-word letter authored by something called "Gamers United," there's a point-by-point breakdown of what exactly is "wrong" with Far Cry 5 and what Ubisoft could do to fix it — presumably to bring back the tens, possibly even hundreds, of people who are bent out of shape over a game that hasn't been fully revealed yet.

Now. There's no scenario in which I actually link out to this ridiculous thing — you know where the Google is if you want to find it — but I still think it's worth a look. So here's the full letter from Gamers United, with annotations compliments of Mashable.

Enough is enough UbiSoft. We’ve sat through your multicultural lectures and your preachy games aimed at degenerates and miscegenators. We’ve tolerated it in the name of gameplay design and innovation. But no more! Far Cry 5 is an insult to your fanbase, the Americans who make up the majority of your customers, and it’s time you woke up to that fact. Change this, or cancel it.

So strident! So entitled!

You, Gamers United, are consumers. No one forces you to spend your time, money, or interest in any particular direction. Ubisoft doesn't sit fans down for lectures, but even if that were true, you wouldn't have to listen.

You claim to speak for the entire Far Cry fanbase... but do you? Do you really? You don't even seem to realize that Americans aren't the majority of Ubisoft customers.

The company's latest earnings report made that clear: 47 percent of sales came from North America and 53 percent came from the rest of the world. That's even a decline: the split was 48 percent in NA and 52 percent in all other regions one year earlier.

Us Gamers have had to endure a lot of crap over the last few years. The targeted harassment by the mainstream press through Gamergate, the terrible launch and outright lies of highly anticpated video games, the outright censorship of art through “localization” policies, the continued rejection of romantic partners when they find out our hobby, the appropriation of our culture by so-called “gamers” on twitter. NO MORE!

More words, more entitlement. There's just one line I want to highlight here: "...the continued rejection of romantic partners when they find out our hobby."

It has often been said that Gamergate and other toxic corners of the industry are a product of sexually frustrated teenagers. I can't imagine where that might have come from....

It’s time to draw a line in the sand. We, the American gamers that make up the majority of your userbase, demand to you cancel this game, or alter it to be less offensive to your main player base. In these times, you must understand that there might be some violent repurcussions if you intend to follow through with your pointless criticism.

We've covered this already, but worth mentioning again: Ubisoft's sales are pretty evenly split between "North America" — which also includes markets in Canada and Mexico, to be clear — and the rest of the world. U.S. buyers are in no way a majority.

I'm also struggling to understand what's offensive about a violent cult acting as an occupying force on U.S. soil. Even if you're a white supremacist/racist, what's the beef here? The cult's founders may be white and vaguely religious — by which I mean, they use a church as a gathering place — but we know already that they're apolitical and regard themselves only as "believers."

The next stretch of the letter is a series of bullet points offering helpful suggestions aimed at fixing Far Cry 5. A very considerate move, especially coming as it does on the heels of a threat of violence.

Change the villains. It’s not so hard, really. Just change the villains to something more realistic. Islam is on the rise in America, as is the violence of inner city gangs. Are you scared to do so? In the words of Boltair – “To learn who rules you, simply find out who’s not being criticized.”

It's not even clear that the cult at the center of Far Cry 5 is actually villainous. Yes, they're framed in the reveal — and at the outset of the game — as an antagonistic force, but Far Cry games rarely feature a fully linear story. And there's already been some (admittedly vague) suggestion that you'll have a measure of choice in the way the story plays out.

Also: a correction for Gamers United. "Boltair" isn't a thing, my friends. I think you're trying to quote the great French author Voltaire, who was known for both his wit and his support for social justice issues embodied by the basic freedoms espoused in our own U.S. Constitution.

Alter the villains. Even if you insist on making the villains American Christians, consider mixing the races a bit to not target white people exclusively. There are plenty of nationalists of every stripe and every race and creed. So throw in some blacks and Mexicans. There’s no reason a protectonist nationalist movement would all be one race? Why stop being Politicaly correct here?

So now we've moved from "change the villains" to "alter the villains." You guys probably could have gotten away with conflating those two, admittedly flawed ideas.

Then again, one of the lines here suggests that Ubisoft "throw in some blacks and Mexicans" for players to shoot at. I guess there's always time to double down on racism, eh?

Alter the plot. It’s obvious that you continue to insist on using these characters. However with a few artistic tweaks you can save the concept entirely. Have the villains simply be misguided patriots forced into making their own nation vs. the will of an oppressive over-government, construed of all the people they turn their wrath against in their immediate surroundings. Their brutal physical and sexual violence towards their oppressors will then be explained as a reaction to harsh government policies and taxation, to show that both sides are wrong.

Hey, an actual second suggestion. I knew you'd get there eventually.

I'll just use this space to point out: we only know the top-line plot details at this point. Namely: there's a cult occupying a piece of Montana, they're armed, and they don't like you. They're led by a man who believes society's collapse is imminent, via a voice that spoke to him.

I don't know where "misguided patriotism" folds into that scenario and neither do you. Even if that is the reality of this story, we won't know about it until Ubisoft shares more. And that's not likely to happen until the game is out, because spoilers.

Change the setting, but only for certain markets. Look, I get that anti-Americanism plays in France, and I’m not telling you to give up on potential profits due to complaints. Wouldn’t want to be thought as one of those hypocrite feminists, right? But for America, right now, Anti-Americanism is out. You gotta play your market. Change the setting to Canada for America. This way you don’t turn away potential players due to offensiveness. Just trying to help you make more money.

Nice lapse into first-person address there, Gamers United. I'm glad you used it in this case to demonstrate your xenophobia. And LOLOLOL at those hypocrite feminists. You sure seem to have it all figured out.

I love the South Parkian quality of your suggestion here: Blame Canada. To avoid disturbing the sensitive racist snowflakes in America, make it so that we're shooting Canadian cultists instead. Good plan.

Follow one of more of these and this game will be saved from PC hell and multicultural development. We Americans have so few games to call our own, and we’re tired of losing them to multi-cultural bullshit.

It's amazing how much joy there is to unpack in these final two sentences.

Ubisoft, you can still act to save Far Cry 5 from "PC hell" — that's "politically correct," not "personal computer" — and "multicultural development." Nevermind the fact that many of your games open with a note that they're "designed, developed, and produced by a multicultural team of various beliefs, sexual orientations, and gender identities."

Even better, though: the absolutely precious notion that Americans — AMERICANS! — have "so few games to call our own." I know I've been kind of flip about all of this, but... I can't. I just can't.

Far Cry 5 is out on Feb. 28, 2018. It might be a good game, it might be a bad game. But it definitely won't be the game described in this absurd petition.

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